


Dead Zone

by AquaWolfGirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure, Action/Romance, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, M/M, Slow Burn, Somewhat Graphic Descriptions of Zombies, Somewhat Graphic Gore, smut later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:32:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5451851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquaWolfGirl/pseuds/AquaWolfGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He guesses it's been about two years since Earth turned into a living hell. He knows it's been one and a half since Milah succumbed to the virus. And he figures it's been one year since he decided he works better alone.<br/>Portland's dead, and ex-mechanic Killian Jones finds himself heading blindly to Jacksonville, where rumors have it that Storybrooke Mall has become a safe haven for those who haven't been affected by the virus. He didn't really expect to find anything or anyone else along the way, much less a teen who seems to think survival is a game to win.<br/>ZombieApocalypse!AU, if the tags weren't obvious enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Zone

**Author's Note:**

> I stumbled across a zombie!fic by AwakeMySoul, and while it was wonderfully written and absolutely beautiful, it created a desire that really couldn't be sated. I loved the idea of the zombie!au with Peter and Killian, and decided to write my own. I have everything planned out so hopefully it will be updated on a somewhat regular basis. Somewhat-beta'd, but if there is something glaringly obvious don't be afraid to speak up! Chapters will vary in length depending on the content and story progression.  
> WARNING: If gore bothers you, this is not for you. I'm not very good at heavily describing gore, but there is some graphic descriptions of violence, gore, and sex later. If you don't like anything graphic, then please click the back button and find another story. Thank you!

He’d known it years before it happened. 

Humanity had always been screwed. Between the destruction and the pollution of both the world and people's minds, he wasn’t at all surprised when Hell came and took over what they had once known as Earth. 

Back then, he’d expected it to be a natural disaster, or something of that sort. He’d thought that the end of the world would be something easily explained as a catastrophe caused by the wrath of a god too long ignored. He’d guessed a flood to sweep everything away, or a quake to bring everything to rubble, or even a giant crack that swallowed everything whole and left no trace of humanity behind. 

He hadn’t expected it to be a toddler boy whose symptoms were untreatable. He’d watched the news every day as concern for the boy rose. He’d heard the reported stories in his garage, the radio crackling in the corner, the small device precariously balanced on the too-cluttered workbench. He’d heard of that first death, of that little boy succumbing after three days of suffering. 

He’d dropped a wrench on his face as he’d heard of the kid’s resurrection a mere 12 hours later. 

He still has the mark on his forehead from the metal tool, a small dent that had bled like a bitch. 

The New Christ, the anti-Christ, the miracle child, the Devil’s Son; the kid had many names until his skin turned pale and grey and his mouth found his mother’s arm.

Killian decided on his own name for the child as panic broke out across the world, the uncontainable virus spreading rapidly through the hospital and spilling onto the streets. 

Zombie. 

The damned kid was a zombie. 

-

That was about two years ago. Two years since the world turned to Hell. Whatever God he’d attempted to speak to before certainly wasn’t listening now. Not when he’s had to shoot kids in the head, their milk teeth still in their skulls as they attempt to gnaw on living flesh like it's candy. Not when he’d lost Milah to the damned virus half a year into its reign over humanity. 

Portland, once a thriving city, reminds him of a an old Western ghost town. Stores are empty, ransacked by the few remaining survivors - himself included. His breath hitches sometimes, when he raids the little shops that were people’s livelihoods once upon a time. Cars are dead-stopped, in the middle of the road more often than not. His motorbike weaves through them well enough, but it’s haunting to see the vehicles stopped and broken out of as the virus had taken over the driver. 

The city’s sad, depressing, and empty of life of the sort that hasn’t come back from the dead. If it was the environment to have tumbleweeds, Killian swears he would’ve seen some. There are hoards of undead milling through the streets, slow and sluggish until they hear sounds of life; he’s sure they'll always be there as long as time continues. He avoids them as best as he can most of the time, interfering when he has to for new supplies. Those are the loud days, full of the crunch of already brittle bones and the harsh ‘bang’ of gunfire. 

But it’s quiet, for the most part. 

That had disturbed him the most in the beginning. The quiet. He was so used to sounds of life, sounds of people going about their ways around him. He found himself missing the laughter of children, the honking of impatient car horns, the sounds of footsteps on pavement. Even the overly brash and almost violently opinionated people he would’ve loved to listen to for hours back then.

Now, he’s grateful for the silence - most of the time. 

He’s wary of it today as he pulls his motorbike into the lot of a convenience store just outside the city limits. The old red and blue neon ‘OPEN’ sign has long been destroyed, and he can only read it because he knows what it once said. The posters that were on the windows advertising sandwiches and cigarettes are peeling and weather-worn. He can’t even see what the brand of cigs is anymore, only parts of the box visible. What was bright orange and green is now burnt umber and an ugly forest green, the crappy paint on the white brick building aging badly.

He remembers this place. He remembers buying the Slushies for David sometimes, before the blond left for Tampa, and he remembers the cans of energy drink he bought once upon a time to keep him and David up through exam week. He vividly remembers buying jugs of antifreeze for cars because this store had the cheapest price in town, and he recalls snagging a pack of cigarettes as well before returning to the garage. He stands there for a moment, hands still on the handlebars, remembering. And then he turns as he hears the sound of an empty soda can being kicked, the thin metal rolling across the asphalt. 

There’s a zombie lumbering towards him, slow and fat with a beard full of blood and gore. He can see where the virus's decay has eaten away at its flesh and the nasty yellowed t-shirt, white ribs showing - more than a few of them cracked or broken entirely. He doesn’t really have the time to observe anything else, nor does he care to. It’s not human anymore. Why should he care what it looks like?

It takes little more than a point and shoot to send it sprawling across the asphalt. He shoots it one more time, for precaution - a lesson he’d learned the hard way. It’s worth an extra bullet to ensure that they're not coming back when his back's turned. He watches it for a few moments, tensing when its loafer-covered foot twitches, and then relaxing when the body falls completely still. 

The sound of a bullet hitting an undead doesn’t even phase him anymore. That ‘bang’ and the sick sound of a bullet meeting decaying flesh means he’s safe. It means he’s alive. He used to vomit, sick at the sight of a head split open and black blood spilling onto the asphalt. But not anymore. Now he turns and walks away. 

He slips his gun back into the holster he’d snagged from the dilapidated police department almost a year ago, keeping one hand on it as he approaches the store with baited breath, preparing himself for the worst.

The sliding doors don’t work, the electricity cut off long ago. He didn’t expect them to. Instead, the glass has been kicked in, shards still clinging to the chrome frame. He steps through, and narrowly avoids landing in the rotting chest cavity of another zombie. He grimaces, but lunges over the thing, narrowly avoiding stepping in the puddle of black blood. He carefully leans over it, observing it. It doesn’t move, and the blunt wound to its skull is fresh, as far as he can tell. It hasn’t rotted over, or even started to decay, as zombie wounds do soon after death. The wound’s very fresh, then. 

Killian looks up, eyes scanning the practically empty aisles for any signs of movement, undead or otherwise. He moves slowly and carefully, keeping his steps light as he moves away from the door and further into the store.

He hadn’t killed it. 

Someone must’ve. 

It’s the silence that helps him. It allows him to hear the whistle of the blade, and he moves out of the way just in time for a switchblade to embed itself into the cardboard Doritos display behind him.

It’s instinct that has him reaching for his gun, aiming and firing towards the movement. Whoever it is ducks back behind one of the metal shelves. He can see the toe of a Converse sneaker around the side of the shelf, and stops. He doesn’t lower his gun, but he doesn’t shoot. There’s no sense on wasting bullets on someone living when he could be using them on someone undead. 

“Come out,” he orders as best as he can, still holding the pistol towards the shelf. 

“Or what?” comes another voice. 

He stops, hesitating with his finger on the trigger. Whoever it is, they don’t seem too shaken up by the fact that they’d just been shot at. Instead, they sound almost teasing. Like this is a game of hide and seek rather than life or death. 

He hears a groan, loud and rumbling, and turns to his left to see one of the former employees heading towards him from the back room. The zombie’s not a pretty sight with his striped polo shirt and half-exposed brain from a previous attack, and Killian grimaces at the obvious gore trailing from his mouth, no doubt from a previous victim. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a smaller figure stand up. Killian aims and shoots just as the figure throws a knife towards the zombie with deadly precision. 

The bullet goes through the side of the undead’s head, while the knife gets it right in the middle of its neck, black blood spilling down the polo shirt collar. The body collapses with a startled grunt, falling face first towards the tiled floor with a sickening ‘crack’. 

Killian walks over carefully, shooting another bullet into the back of its skull for good measure. He uses the toe of his boot to roll the body over, focusing only on getting the knife back for the other survivor. But before he can pull the knife from the zombie’s neck and offer it back, it’s tugged from its mark and folded up again by a pale hand. He watches the teenager walk to the Doritos display, the boy grabbing the knife and tucking that one away into his back pocket. Killian can see the other blade peeking out from the pocket of his black hoodie, and another tucked in between the boy's skin and his ripped jeans. He watches as the boy grabs a black backpack from the aisle he’d hid in before and stuffs it with as many water bottles and Lays chips as he can. 

He looks around the convenience store, alert for any sign of movement that isn’t the teen’s. The shelves are low, and he can see the boy’s head and shoulders as he moves around. The cash register’s been busted, no doubt by some robbers who took advantage of the virus early on to fill their pockets with cash. The metal shelves are mostly empty, but there are still a few packets of stale chips and some bottles of flat soda. Most of the beer's gone, but he can see some bottles of liquor that remain dusty and abandoned. 

Satisfied that there isn’t another threat around to surprise them, Killian tucks his gun back into the holster, moving his leather jacket so that it covers the weapon. 

His eyes find the boy again, examining the boy who couldn’t have been more than maybe 20, probably 18 or 19. He catches sight of dark eyebrows, light brown hair and a strong jaw as the kid walks to the next aisle, examining the auto supplies for anything useful. When the kid turns around to raise an eyebrow at him, Killian sees the rest of his face, and raises an eyebrow in return. The kid’s attractive, he’ll give him that. A pretty face in this world’s hard to come by, nowadays. It’s refreshing to see a genuinely attractive person who doesn’t have blood spilling from their mouth or their face half rotted. 

“What?” the kid demands, once he notices Killian’s staring. Killian tenses, but then he sees the smirk. “Like what you see?” 

“It was a good throw,” Killian commends, crossing his arms over his chest as he watches the boy raid the store. He leans against one of the freezers, the food in it long past its prime but the seal of the fridge keeping the smell of rot and decay inside. It does nothing for the zombies littering the floor, but at least he doesn't have to smell rotting Bagel Bites as well. “You’re good with knives.” 

The kid snorts and continues to stuff his bag. He grabs a roll of paper towels, tucking it into the bottom of the bag before piling the rest of the supplies on top with a kind of organization that comes from necessity to fit everything one can into the smallest space possible.

“I didn’t expect to find any survivors here,” Killian continues. “Portland’s pretty dead.” 

“Was that a pun?” 

He almost winces at the boy’s mocking tone, but he can see the smirk and the quirked eyebrow from across the store. The teen’s getting closer now, working his way through the aisles for anything that could be used to survive. He grabs an ice scraper and tucks it into the pocket of his backpack after examining the sharpness of the blade.

“It wasn’t intended to be, no,” Killian admits with a shrug. “It’s not often I come across survivors.” 

“If you’re looking for a partner in crime, I’m not interested.” It comes out almost as a snarl. “I don’t need help.” 

Killian holds his hands up in mock surrender. “I didn’t offer any of that, now did I?” he retorts, glaring at the kid. “I’m offering information.” 

That gets the boy to slow his packing, stopping and standing to look at Killian, two aisles away now, in the middle of the ‘personal’ section of the store.  
“… of what kind?” he demands, green eyes narrowing. At least, Killian thinks they’re green. They look green from his position.

“A safe haven,” he explains. “Rumors, maybe, but could also be true. A mall in Florida dedicated to survivors, a zombie-free zone, supposedly. Jacksonville. Storybrooke Mall. I figure it’s worth a go, at least.” 

“You know that’s across the country, right? Across, and all the way down. It would take you days,” is the snarky response he gets, paired with another one of the kid’s smirks he’s starting to become familiar with. But the kid's eyes are lit with something akin to fire - hope. The kid cocks his head. “Thanks, but again, not interested,” he says nonchalantly, but his movements are quicker now, more eager.

“My bike has extra space,” Killian offers, shrugging. “I could offer you a ride. Or at least get you halfway there. You're a bloody fool if you think you can make it that far on your own."

He really should’ve been able to know how fast the boy moves with how fast he threw the knife. But he still isn’t expecting the knife against his throat, his back pressed against the fridge door. His head hits the glass with a dull 'thud', neck vulnerable and open with the boy's hand in his hair. 

The teen’s eyes are green, like he'd thought. The boy's breath smells like sickeningly sweet bubble gum, which explains the pink packets visible through the mesh pocket of the teen’s backpack. If not for the knife against his throat, it would seem almost intimate, the way they’re standing. The teen’s knee is in between his legs, effectively pinning him to the freezer door. As young as he is, he obviously knows how to threaten, and kill - zombies and men alike, it seems.

“Not. Interested.” It's spat his face, the boy's words dripping with annoyance. 

That’s all he gets before the boy’s gone, pushing the door open and grabbing the sport bike leaning against the side of the entrance. The bell signaling entry and exit gives a depressing, off-key ‘ding-dong’ as the teen pushes himself onto the bike, pedaling away. Killian’s left standing against the freezer with a line of zombie gore on his neck.


End file.
